


The meaning of save

by Elsewhere_voice



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-17 13:07:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29966853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsewhere_voice/pseuds/Elsewhere_voice
Summary: The story of how Squad Levi / Special Operations Squad was formed.Which is also the story of how Levi faced his fear to lose people who trust him, with a contribution from Erwin and a Cadet girl.
Relationships: Levi Ackerman/Erwin Smith, Levi Ackerman/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	1. Bringing the fire out

**Author's Note:**

> Spelling note: the characters' names are spelled differently in different versions of AOT/SNK. I chose the preferred spelling of the Italian version (my native language).

A long time had passed since Levi’s last dream about Farlan and Isabel.  
Isabel’s severed head could still talk. I followed you, it said – she said. Farlan’s upper body fell from the titan’s mouth, bloodied and lifeless, but he was talking too. I trusted you, he said.  
The titan was moving closer to Levi now, but he couldn’t deal with it yet, he had to listen to his friends. He owed it to them. They kept repeating the same words over and over again, but he had to listen to all of it, he couldn’t miss one word. I followed you, I trusted you, I followed you, I trusted you. The titan grabbed him. Its grip was quite loose, he could get out of it, but he had to keep listening. I followed you, I trusted you. He could smell the titan’s breath. I followed you, I trusted you. The titan crushed his head with his teeth.  
Levi felt grateful.

A moment later, Levi woke up feeling breathless. It’s all under control, he thought, just a few moments to put his barricades up again and put those feelings back where they’re supposed to be, out of sight and out of his mind. Shit, he hated sleeping.  
When he finally got up, he cleaned the entire room all over again, resenting the fact that he had just cleaned it the day before. Cleaning always helped him clear his mind. But he could only wipe the same surface for so many times, so at some point he decided that what he truly needed was not the quiet peace of a clean room, but rather movement, speed, the world blurring all around him.

-

The training grounds were crowded, that day. The next expedition was approaching fast, at times like this the soldiers would always go there to make sure their skills were at their best. The expedition’s goal was to reach a pre-walls civilization building they named Fort Wintan, inspect it and determine whether it was fit for Commander Erwin’s project of establishing a base of operations outside the walls. Erwin firmly believed that it was the Scout’s mission to work towards the goal of giving the wide world back to humanity.  
Levi had no need to test his skills before leaving, he just needed to move. When he was finally flying and spinning around, barely even noticing the practice targets and hitting them effortlessly, he finally felt more like himself – or rather, more like the Levi he wanted the world to see.  
When he was done and ready to leave, he realized a small crowd had gathered to watch him practice. This was not uncommon, so he ignored them as usual as he started removing his gear.

“Captain, may I have a word?”  
Levi turned to see a brown-haired girl with a nervous look on her face as if she had just asked to have a word with a titan.  
“Elsie Lowe, is it?”  
The girl blushed. “You… You know my name, sir?”. Then she blushed even harder, straightened her shoulders and saluted him with her first on her heart. “I mean yes, sir, it is”.  
She looked like one of those pathetic teenage trainees that felt both terror and a weird crush for their instructor – that was before Keith Shadis became Head Instructor and squeezed all romanticism out of the young girls. But this one was neither a teenager nor a trainee. Elsie Lowe was a soldier of the Survey Corps, a young and inexperienced one for sure, but a full soldier nonetheless. Levi had a good memory and preferred to know the names of the people who might one day die by his side. Her name was also easy to remember since she graduated recently, during a ceremony in which a spectacularly low number of recruits joined the Survey corps.

“What do you want?” Levi asked.  
“I was wondering if I could join the Scouts’ next expedition as part of the Carts guard team” she said.  
“Why are you asking me? Commander Erwin is in charge of selecting the expedition members” he said.  
“I know. But Erwin… Listens to you”. She blushed again. How the hell could someone turn that red?  
Levi went back to removing his gear. “Why do you want that shit position anyway? It’s protected from a direct titan attack, but if titans reach you, you’re fucking screwed and you’re gonna die to protect those shit supplies. Cadets like you usually join the Relay teams. You shoot a signaling flare every once in a while, you’re relatively protected, and you can run like hell when titans approach.”  
Elsie said: “I know, but I joined this Regiment to save people. We’re the only ones who fight to give humanity a future. I’m not yet strong enough to join the more exposed teams and fight along with the best, but there’s a value in protecting the supplies. Supplies can make a difference between life and death even for the strongest warriors. If risking my life to protect the carts and bringing the supplies to the other teams when required is the best I can do, I must do it”.

Levi looked at Elsie like he just saw her for the first time. A part of him still admired the blind bravery he saw in the Survey corps. The small part that didn’t curse at them for being in a rush to die too soon. He paused to ponder her words, then he said: “I’ll inform the Commander about your wish to die earlier than you should. Now go before I decide to boil an egg on that red face of yours”.  
This caused Elsie’s face to redden even more. She mumbled a “Yes, sir” before saluting him and moving on to the training area.

-

Erwin’s office desk was hosting even more piles of paper than usual. Sometimes Erwin joked that the paperwork before an expedition was more exhausting than the expedition itself. And in a sense, it was. That was the time when he had to make decisions about who was coming along, and in which role. In a way, it was the time when he wrote death sentences. But he lived by the principle that he taught Levi on his first expedition: there can be no regret.

“You’ve chosen which of the new kids are gonna die yet?” Levi asked.  
“I was just about to work on the Relay teams formation” Erwin said.  
Levi shifted his weight on the chair. “A girl came to me on the training grounds today. She said some shit about saving people and the future of humanity, and expressed her wish to decorate a supplies cart with her corpse. Shooting flares is clearly not heroic enough for her”.  
“Which is you way of telling me she wants to join one of the Cart guard teams?”  
“Yeah”.  
Erwin considered the matter for a while. “What’s her name?”.  
Levi told him her name and Erwin looked up her Training corp’s evaluation. “Keith describes her as incredibly driven and motivated, with average fighting skills”.  
“Tch. Incredibly driven and motivated with average fighting skills is a lot of words for titan food” Levi declared.  
The Commander stared at the evaluation for a few more moments, then proclaimed: “I’ll put her in Squad 2’s Cart guard team“.  
Levi shrugged. He had learned a long time ago to trust Erwin’s judgement.

Sometimes, right before an expedition with death casting its shadow over them, Levi and Erwin would simply sit in the Commander’s office, drinking by the fireplace, alternating conversations with silences that were by no means empty. After losing his youth friends, the Captain tried to restrain himself from developing feelings for people, but he had to give up on the attempt of doing the same with Erwin. He avoided trying to explore the nature of his fondness further, but he couldn’t deny to himself that it was there.  
“Have you given any more thoughts about the Special Operations Squad?” Erwin asked suddenly, but not unexpectedly.  
Levi tensed on his chair. “More thoughts, yeah. Different thoughts, no. I still think it’s a shit idea”.  
“You’ve lead expedition teams before”.  
“Temporary teams. Formations that would only work together for one expedition, only to be rearranged on the next one based on different needs. I’ll eat on a dusty table before I ever join whatever permanent elite team you want me to form”. Levi said.  
Erwin gave him a knowing look. “You don’t want to create a bond with them. More precisely, you don’t want them to create a bond with you. You don’t want them to grow fond of you, to trust you completely, and then get them killed”.  
Fucking Erwin Smith. He knew him too well. He could always see through him, Levi couldn’t hide anything from him. There was no point in not telling him what they both knew he was thinking: “You know how it ended up the last time I lead a permanent team”.  
That was indeed a bad day to have a dream about Farlan and Isabel.  
“We are the Survey corps. Whoever you choose for your team is going to die anyway. You can fight for each other’s life, and when death comes, you can make it mean something”.  
“Did Isabel and Farlan’s deaths mean something?”. Shit, he hadn’t pronounced those names out loud in years.  
Erwin just looked at him and said: “They saw the sky”.

-

On the day of the expedition, Levi was making his way to the front line, taking in the formations all around him. Elsie, the motivated average-skilled soldier, was standing by one of the carts, with that mix of pride and nervous anticipation that most recruits had in their eyes on their first expedition. She talking with another cadet and, interestingly enough, Section Commander Hanji Zoë.  
“You’re not where you’re supposed to be” Levi noted as he passed Hanji by.  
“Neither are you. We’re both doing what we do best: I’m talking about interesting stuff and you’re going around killing everyone’s mood” retorted Hanji.  
Levi turned around and raised an eyebrow. “What interesting stuff could you possibly discuss with two kids who still smell like teenage sweat?”  
“We were talking about misunderstood creatures”.  
Levi’s eyes said what the fuck better than his words could.  
At that point, the young guy saluted him and introduced himself: “Soldier Damien Aran, sir. I’m in Squad 4’s Relay team. I was talking with my fellow cadet when Section Commander Hanji joined us to discuss my interest in being part of her research team.”  
“Levi, this guy is marvelous. He studies insects as a hobby and wants to study titans as a job!”. Hanji said with a giggle.  
Oluo Bozad jumped out of nowhere to make his comment: “Looks like he only enjoys either very small or very big things”.  
Damien did his best to ignore it. “I just like to learn things. Isn’t that what surveying is about? Exploring and learning?”  
“I say the Survey corps are about saving humanity, but whatever” Elsie said. Then she blushed because she remembered Captain Levi was listening.  
“But how can you save people if you don’t learn enough first?” Damien asked.  
Hanji said: “How old are you, kid? Is it legal for me to marry you?”.  
Shit. Levi hoped to find some more common sense in the front lines.

But of course he didn’t. Not since Oluo reached the Forward Scouts formation, anyway. The guy had never been the quietest team member. Other Scouts, though, seemed to find him both annoying and amusing at the same time.  
Right now he was talking with Petra Ral. She was a formidable fighter, with a sweet heart that still hadn’t lost any of its sweetness to the horror of their missions. A sort of miracle.  
She was laughing at something Oluo said, when Eld Gin joined the formation and said: “You still laugh to this man’s poor jokes, Petra? If you keep boosting his ego it’s gonna grow bigger than a titan”.  
“I’d say bigger than Wall Maria itself” Gunther Schultz added.  
Eld and Gunther used to be in the same Cadet corp, and always worked particularly well together, that’s why Levi himself suggested to always put the two of them on the same expedition team. Being frequently placed in the Forward Scouts team, they also became quite close with Oluo and Petra, who were also put regularly in the front lines. Their comradeship had developed both in combat and within the walls. Levi was well aware of the risks of getting too close to other soldiers, but he couldn’t deny that their ability to understand what each other was thinking and coordinating accordingly was extremely useful. The Captain himself had often cooperated with them and found their technique particularly efficient and reliable.  
“Focus and don’t get yourselves killed, or you’ll have nothing more to brag about” Levi told them.  
“We don’t brag. Oluo is the only one who does that” Gunther protested.  
Eld nodded. “We’ll stay focused, captain”.  
“And… Take care of yourself too, Captain Levi” Petra said with a gentle smile. Damned gentleness.

A few minutes later, a fire pervaded the entire Regiment. It was Commander Erwin’s speech, of course. Since he became Commander, there hadn’t been a single time the Regiment’s hearts didn’t turn into burning flames of passion whenever Erwin gave a speech. When the gates opened, the soldiers felt like the world and the future was theirs, like nothing would ever take them down, like they could be mortally wounded and keep fighting, moved by dedication alone. Levi himself wasn’t entirely immune to that power.  
The Survey corps rode out of the walls bringing the fire out in the world.


	2. A temporary solution

The expedition had been quieter than usual. The Relay teams sighted a few titans, of course, and the regiment had promptly altered its direction accordingly. Most of the times, engaging in combat didn’t prove necessary, since the titans never got close enough to force the soldiers to fight. In those cases, some slight directional readjustments were all it took for the Survey corps to avoid them without having to fight in an open space area.

The Forward scouts spotted their first titans of the day after several hours of riding. The titans were unlucky enough to find themselves running towards the left flank of the Forward scouts, Captain Levi’s zone. He quickly analyzed the situation:  
Three titans. One 12 meters class, two 5 meters class. We can’t avoid them without splitting the formation in two. We’ll engage.  
“Eld, Gunther, you take the one of the left. Petra, Oluo, the other 5 meters class. I’ll take the tall bastard” Levi shouted.  
“Captain, you should take someone else with you if you’re going for the 12 meters class! We’re in open space!”, Petra protested.  
“Now!”. And with that, Levi jumped from his saddle and hooked his gear to the titan’s right shoulder.  
As he reeled himself up, the titan tried to grab him. The bastard was fast, but Levi was faster. He twirled around the beast’s arm, wounding it badly enough to make it useless. Levi used his momentum to change direction mid-air, quickly disengaged his gear from the titan’s shoulder and hooked it to the back of his head, reeling himself towards the nape. A quick cut and it was done.  
It all happened in a matter of seconds. His comrades took a few more moments to take their targets down, working in couples, one of them engaging the titan laterally to distract it as the other went for the nape. They made a quick and efficient work.  
They wasted only a few more seconds in exultation before whistling for their horse to reach them and moving back into formation.  
When the Levi muttered a “well done”, his comrades tried very hard to not make a big deal out of it.

-

The expedition kept proceeding quietly. Then something unusual happened.  
“An emergency briefing? What could that be about?” Gunther wondered as he looked up in the sky.  
“Nothing good, if it can’t wait until the next arranged stop. At least the next emergency briefing spot is not far from here” Eld said.  
Levi knew that an emergency briefing after a long time with no signaling flares was a bad sign. He rode west with the other soldiers to meet the rest of the Regiment, his mind considering all the worst possibilities.

The emergency briefing spot was of course a forest area. When Captain Levi reached the zone, most of the soldiers looked like they didn’t know what had happened yet. He immediately went looking for the Commander and found him separated from the rest of the formation, with Section Commander Mike Zacharias, Section Commander Hanji Zoë and… Shit.  
That one was Elsie Lowe? The blushing girl who wanted to save the world?  
She didn’t look like herself, though. All the naivety had left her expression, replaced by the look of a person who has seen hell.  
It happens to all Survey corps soldiers, sooner or later. The horror they witness, the deaths, comrades’ blood dripping from filthy mouths, severed body parts, the knowledge that the corpse that lies in front of them used to laugh by their side that same morning. It was a matter of time.  
Elsie had entered their hell, never to come back again.

“What are you doing here? What happened to the rest of the Carts guard?” Levi asked as soon as he reached the group.  
“Dead” she whispered. “Dead. I couldn’t… No one…”  
Then she seemed to remember who she was. She raised a trembling fist in salute and said: “Report from Squad 2’s Carts guard team, sir. We were attacked by a group of titans, about ten. Some of them displayed an abnormal behavior and started attacking the supply carts. They were all 7 meters class or above. The team engaged in combat, but when the supplies were destroyed and it was clear we were not going to win that fight, Captain Harlan Yenis sent me and Soldier Lucas Simmons to reach the front formations, to alert the rest of the Regiment. The supplies are all gone, sir. The Regiment needs to turn back to the walls now. If we go all the way to Fort Wintan, we risk not having enough supplies for the journey back. If we encounter other titans and the soldiers start running out of gas, there will be no replacements available and we will have more casualties than we can count”.  
Her voice trembled on the word casualties.  
“Soldier Lucas… Didn’t make it. I’m the only one who reached you. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t save them” she added weakly.

Levi turned to the Section Commanders in anger. When facing tragedy, anger was preferable to pain.  
“What the fuck where your Relay kids doing, Mike? Or was it your flank, Hanji? You and your crazy kids were too busy drooling over titans to signal them?”.  
Mike made a step towards Levi, but Hanji grabbed his arm. “Much as I’d like to punch him myself, we have more important things to deal with. Besides, he knows he’s saying bullshit”.  
Erwin intervened: “They must have attacked the Rear guard. It’s hard to sight titans with good advance from that position, and if they managed to surprise them, with such a big group they had no choice but to engage immediately”.  
Elsie nodded. “They were coming from the rear, sir. We weren’t expecting an attack from that position”.  
Mike reflected on the implications of that revelation. “But if they made it through the entire Rear guard and the Carts team wasn’t alerted in time… It means the Rear guard is…”  
“Dead” concluded Levi. “Presumably all of them.”  
“Some of them might just have fallen behind the rest of the formation. They may still be out there” Mike argued.  
Erwin spoke again. “What matters now is that we have no supplies to rely on. Most soldiers haven’t used much gas today, but that group of abnormal titans is still out there. Plus, we lost all food and water rations and most of the medical equipment. Reaching Fort Wintan is now out of the question. We have to turn back and rearrange the formation. We also need to make an inventory of all the spare supplies that the other teams are carrying”.  
“We might get some bandages and other medical equipment, but extra gas tanks are not the most comfortable thing to carry. And that’s what we need the most. I doubt we’ll manage to equip even ten soldiers” Hanji pointed out.  
“Mike, Hanji, you’re in charge of the inventory and the redistribution of whatever we can find. Levi and I will rearrange the formation”.

The teams were significantly thinner, now. They had to form a new Rear guard, which implied depriving all the other formations of some of their most experienced soldiers. This included the flanks, to which most of the new soldiers were assigned.  
“It’s gonna be a trial by fire for the cadets” Levi commented.  
For one of them it has already been, he thought.  
“One more thing. Levi, I want you to take position in the exact center of the formation with a small group of selected soldiers. From that position, you’ll be able to quickly join whatever group needs extra support. With such a small number of veterans for each group, we’re gonna need it”.  
“Hold on. Are you using this emergency to force me to create a Special Operations Squad?”.  
“All of you will have spare gas tanks. Which will probably mean all the extra tanks we have. If we collect more, we’ll distribute them to the veterans in the other teams”.  
A moment later, Erwin was already moving on to inform the other officers of the new arrangement.  
“That’s just a temporary solution” Levi said, whether Erwin could still hear him or not.  
Shit. The Commander knew Levi would never question his orders, even less so in an emergency situation.

Levi noticed Elsie sitting by a tree, on her own, staring blankly at a group of nearby soldiers.  
“Hey, kid. I need you to do something for me”.  
She seemed surprised for a second, then she immediately stood up and saluted him. She slammed her first on her chest with unnecessary strength. Some soldiers found comfort in military formalities after tragedy had hit.  
“I need you to go and fetch…” he hesitated a second. He knew which names to say, he just didn’t want to say them. “Oluo Bozad, Eld Gin, Gunther Schultz and Petra Ral from Squad 1.”  
“Yes, sir” she said, then marched away looking like she was given the most important job in the entire army. 

When the team had gathered, Levi explained the situation.   
“Commander Erwin wants a small team of selected soldiers to ride on the exact center of the formation, serving as a standby group to join whatever team needs fighting support. We all get a spare set of gas tanks”.  
His comrades looked at each other.  
“So the voices about the Special Operations Squad…” Oluo said.  
“Shut your mouth. This is a temporary solution. We’re not a fucking permanent elite squad”. Levi said.  
Eld saluted him. “Still, it will be a privilege to be the team the rest of the Regiment will rely on, sir”.  
The others also looked proud. Let them be proud if it makes them fight harder, as long as they don’t stick around me like puppies after this expedition is over, Levi thought.

-

The team was riding in the most central position, equipped with the extra gas tanks. Most of the journey was silent, and Levi could feel how alert each one of them was, even if their position was the most protected.   
When a red flare was shot from the right flank, he didn’t even need to say anything out loud: they all immediately turned right at once, maintaining the same perfect formation.  
They reached the right side of the formation quickly, but by the time they arrived, hell had already unleashed.  
Four titans, classes from 4 to 10 meters, and moving fast. The team was engaged in combat, but they were in open space. Some of the more experienced soldiers were managing to distract them, but slicing their napes without relying on stable surfaces to hook their gear on was damn hard. The titans’ bodies, moving fast as they did, were totally unreliable. Most soldiers were only engaging and disengaging their gear from various parts of the titans’ bodies, frantically changing direction in an attempt to escape their grip, and wounding whatever limb they could reach.  
One of the soldiers was thrown to the ground. He looked battered, but not otherwise injured. Levi recognized him as one of the officers.  
“Captain! Gather your team and move forward. Get those kids away from here before they get themselves killed. We’ll deal with this” Levi instructed him.  
The officer quickly regrouped his team. There had been losses already. Shit. Levi couldn’t think about that now.  
“I’ll get the 10 and 4 meters class. You get the two 7 meters. Same couples”.  
His comrades quickly followed the orders. Levi took down the 4 meters first. Those little bastards proved annoying when they had to simultaneously fight shorter and taller titans. That one in particular seemed way too clever for one of those beasts, and moved too unpredictably. It took some more time than usual, but he sliced his nape nonetheless, then reeled himself up, avoiding the 12 meters class’ hands with continuous changes of direction. He was so fast the titan could barely see him. As he moved past the titan’s neck and was ready to turn around and slice, he caught a glimpse of another group of titans approaching.  
Shit. He sliced that titan’s nape with more strength than necessary, as if he wanted to kill them all with that single cut.

The other team members made it without suffering injuries, and were now staring at the group of approaching titans.  
“I count six” Petra said.  
“Seven” Oluo corrected her.  
But they were only looking west.  
“Five from south-east” Gunther added.  
“They’re the closest to the rest of the Regiment. We need to take care of them before they reach the right flank, their numbers are already reduced” Eld said.  
“If we engage one group and we don’t take them down fast enough, the other will reach us from behind before we can do anything about it” Oluo argued.  
“Fuck. I’ve never seen so many all together. And from here they all look at least 10 meters class” Gunther muttered.  
The team was very efficient, but there were no guarantees about the speed of the operation in an open space. The four titans they just killed already way took longer than usual. Levi had to find a solution when no solution seemed available.  
What they desperately needed was a stable surface to use their gear.  
He got an idea. It was a wild gamble, like one of Erwin’s, but it was also their only chance.  
Finally, Levi spoke: “We need trees or we’re dead. We’ll ride south to the closest forest area, and when they get too close, we just distract them. We won’t go for the napes, no high-precision tasks, just slice whatever you can cut and get away immediately. We just need to escape them long enough to reach the trees. Once we’re there, we replace the gas tanks and we kill them. Understood?”.  
They all nodded, jumped back on their horses and rode in the direction he pointed. They knew it meant getting even further away from the rest of the Regiment. But they trusted him and his wild idea of a fighting chance.

When they reached the trees, even Levi was short of breath. It had been a long ride, and though they managed to slow the titans down by cutting knees and ankles, it had costed them a lot of energy and, even more importantly, gas.   
Gunther’s horse was crushed dead as they were getting close to the forest, and rode together with Petra. Eld’s horse was injured, and though it managed to take Eld to the forest, the wound got worse and worse and the animal was now exhaling its last breaths.  
The team had reeled themselves up on the trees, taking the time to change their gas tanks. Some of them already had to change them on horseback. Levi looked around and saw his comrades, tired but determined, looking at the approaching death with fire in their eyes. They trusted his plan, and now he had to show them it was worth it.  
He wasn’t as good as Erwin at giving speeches. The only thing he said before the massacre began – whose massacre was yet to be decided – was:  
“Kill. And live”.

-

What followed was a whirlwind of blood, blades, limbs and wild screams. And yet, there was order in chaos, purpose in rage. The team worked together as if they were one single body, they protected each other. They made plans without even talking.   
Levi had never moved that fast. He felt like his body was not even a concrete object anymore, just a destroying force.  
But they were all tired, even more so because other titans had joined their original pursuers. The trees provided them the chance to briefly get away and take a breath, but those beasts were stronger than the smaller ones, they could shake those trees enough the make them unsafe and force the soldiers to keep moving. And yet they were so close to the end…   
That was when Petra was grabbed by a titan. Levi immediately pulled himself in her direction. A smaller titan jumped out of nowhere and he was forced to take the time to cut it.  
Petra’s head was inside the titan’s mouth. It was closing its jaw. Oluo moved towards her too, and he ended up grabbed by another titan.   
No time think. Oluo was closer.  
Levi changed direction mid-air, hooked his gear to a different tree and sliced the nape of the closest titan. It collapsed to the ground, releasing its grip.  
But at the that point, Petra was…  
Wait. Alive?

Silence. It almost felt unnatural.  
All the titans were dead. Eld and Gunther quickly joined Oluo and Levi after taking down their last target. Petra was trembling in the now limp hand of the titan that almost killed her.   
“If none of you killed it, then who…” she said.  
They explored the titan’s body trying to find out what happened. They found the unconscious but still breathing body of a soldier with a leg trapped under one of the creature’s massive shoulders.  
Elsie Lowe.


	3. Her choice without regrets

Elsie must had sliced the titan’s nape without managing to move away in time before getting crushed. The team carried Elsie’s body away from the corpse, careful not the damage her further. Her right leg suffered the pressure of the titan’s body and was probably broken, and it was bleeding as well. It was a blade cut: apparently, hew own blade hit her leg as the titan’s weight crushed her. They unfortunately had no medical equipment, so they bandaged the wound with strips of Scout cape, but the girl remained unconscious through all of that.  
It took a few more minutes for the girl to gain consciousness again. She whimpered like a wounded animal, and when she opened her eyes, she stared at her own leg in shock and started to hyperventilate.  
“Soldier Elsie Lowe, breathe. Breathe” Levi said.  
When she heard his voice, she seemed to finally realize what was going on.  
“Captain! I brought the gas. The titan… I killed it?” she stuttered, breath still unsteady.  
“Breathe. Don’t talk again until your breath is steady. Then drink some water, and if you won’t look like you’ll pass out again, you can speak”.

She followed the orders. When she spoke again, her voice was weak.   
“I brought you some more gas tanks, sir. I knew you were going to need them. The titans were following you, so I just followed their trail. These two extra sets were all I could find. There were no more spare supplies, so I… Retrieved them from our fallen comrades and secured them to my own tanks”. She started trembling even harder.  
Shit. Fuck. Shit.  
“You left the formation, retrieved the tanks from the corpses and followed the trail of a dozen fucking titans all alone to bring us this gas?” Levi asked.  
She nodded. “The rest of the formation was safe, you weren’t, and the army can’t afford to lose you. If there’s someone who can save the rest of us, someone who can protect mankind better than anyone else could, that’s this team”.  
She was mad. And yet… “I’m out of gas. I was going to have none for the journey back”. Oluo said.  
“Me too. I had to spin around and change trajectory too many times, they moved too fast. My tanks are empty” Eld said.  
Elsie looked like she just received the best news of her life. “Then I saved you. I saved you”.  
“And me” Petra stated. “This titan was one second away from killing me. I would be dead if you didn’t save me”.  
Elsie stared at the creature’s corpse with a look of utter astonishment. Her eyes were fixed on the sliced nape. “I killed a titan… I really killed a titan. I’ve never killed one before. Sometimes I wondered if when the moment would come, I would really be strong enough to…”. Her voice faltered.  
Petra put a hand on her shoulder and gave her the brightest smile. “You made it. You were great. And you saved my life. Thank you”.  
A tear fell on Elsie’s cheek and she smiled back, like she forgot about her damned leg.

There was not time for this.  
“Sun is setting” Levi said. “All the horses are either lost or crushed by the titans. Yours was crushed too, Elsie, we found its remainings when you were unconscious. On foot, trying to move back to the walls without visibility is a suicide. It’s probably the same with sunlight, but we shouldn’t further reduce our already low chances. Besides, we’re all too tired. We should find shelter for the night”.  
“Ebony Tower? It’s a few miles from here, but we’d be more protected than out here in the woods, and we’d get a higher observation point to sight titans, for as much as we can see without sunlight anyway”. Eld suggested.  
“Hopefully those beasts sleep in the night just like we do. That’s something Hanji’s research team could try to find out” Oluo commented.  
Ebony Tower was one of the buildings left in the area from the pre-walls civilization. The Scouts explored it in one of their missions, but found it unfit to host a base of operations outside the walls. It couldn’t host a number of soldiers large enough to make a permanent base of operations safe, but it was Levi’s team’s best option for that night.  
“We’ll go there” Levi agreed. “Hopefully we’ll make it before we lose all sunlight and visibility is too reduced”.  
Petra was helping Elsie stand up and held on to her. The wounded soldier made a tentative little jump forward with her good leg.  
“Tch, cut the crap” Levi muttered, and easily lifted Elsie on his back.  
Elsie whispered a nervous “Thank you, captain”, and blushed harder than she probably had in her entire life. Everyone noticed. Gunther said: “Sorry the Captain isn’t carrying you in his arms, girl. He’s much more of a pragmatic than a romantic type”.  
Elsie looked even more nervous, confirming what the team members had just thought.  
All Levi thought was that the situation was really messed up, if Gunther started joking too.

-

Ebony Tower wasn’t high enough to ensure protection from all titan classes, but most of them wouldn’t be able to reach the soldiers if they climbed up to the highest floors. Twilight was giving way to night when they finally reached it.  
“There you go, girl”. Oluo laid Elsie down. They had been taking turns for carrying her all the way to their shelter. She felt guilty for slowing them down, they might have reached the tower sooner without her, but luckily they didn’t encounter any titan along the way. However, Elsie had become significantly weaker and paler during the journey.  
“We’ll take turns guarding the surrounding territory from the building’s roof. Petra, take the first turn. The others, conduct a survey of the tower and find if there’s any supply we could use” Levi ordered.  
They all quickly moved to their assigned tasks. Then Levi turned to the wounded girl.  
“Now let me see that leg” Levi told her.  
Her eyes widened, but her face stayed as pale as before. Levi was almost hoping to see her blush once again, it would have given her a way healthier look.  
He inspected the wounded limb with expertise, it definitely wasn’t the first time he’d seen this kind of injuries. There had certainly been a fracture, but what worried him the most was the blade cut. It had stopped bleeding, but they had nothing to disinfect it. If it got infected, she would likely die before they could make it back to the walls.  
A girl would die because she followed him.  
I followed you… I trusted you… Farlan and Isabel’s words in the dream came back to his mind to torment him again.

Oluo, Gunther and Eld found nothing that could be of great use, but they created a splint for Elsie’s leg and a couple of crutches out of some wooden planks. Levi thought it was useless, she shouldn’t be trying to walk around anyway.  
They had to ration their food and water supplies, since they had to make them last until their return to the walls. They would still have to look for a water source on their way back, but hopefully they could make it without having to waste time hunting. Elsie tried to offer them her rations and Levi almost punched her in the face for it.  
They all knew they had to make it back to Wall Maria on their own, the rest of the Regiment had no idea about their location since they left the formation behind, so trying to hold that position until a rescue party found them was out of the question.

Petra joined them as Gunther took her place. She smiled kindly to Elsie. “How are you feeling?”.  
Elsie smiled back. “Like horse shit, but thank you for asking”.  
“Hey, girl” Oluo grinned, “I didn’t think you had it in you to talk like that”.  
“That’s because you weren’t in my Cadet corp. I would come up with the most creative curse phrases. At some point, my comrades started voting which was my best swear expression of the month”. Elsie laughed at the memory.  
“Really? What was your best one?” Eld asked curiously.  
“Depends on who you ask. There were two main currents of thought. Some of my fellows preferred the utterly nonsensical ones, others were more in favor of the sexual ones. Particularly the ones about Instructor Keith Shadis”. She laughed again.  
“You’re getting both funnier and weirder, girl. Are you sure you’re not developing a fever?” Eld said.  
“I do feel hot” Elsie noted.  
Oluo joked: “Maybe it’s just because you’re sitting so close to the Captain”.  
Oluo, Eld and Petra laughed. Even Elsie seemed to be amused other than just embarrassed. Levi shook his head, but he was secretly glad the group was feeling more relieved after that hell of a day.  
“Shadis deserves all your curses anyway” Levi conceded.

The comrades kept talking and finding relief in each other’s company for a while. They looked like... Levi really, really didn’t want to admit it, but they looked like a family. They shared training stories, unexpected anecdotes from their life before the army, and they laughed way more than anyone would have done after a day like that. Even Levi would say a word every now and then, mostly making stinging remarks, but he spent most of the time in silence watching his teammates.  
His teammates. Shit.  
“Alright, now get some sleep if you can. If you can’t, try harder. We’ve got a long way to go tomorrow” Levi said.  
They followed his orders once again, laying on the hard stone, using their capes as pillows.

-

It was Levi’s guard shift. He stood on the rooftop, arms resting on the merlons, when he heard the sound of wood hitting stone behind his back. Elsie had climbed up to the roof, relying on her crutches, with a suffering look on her pale face.  
“What the fuck are you doing?” he asked immediately.  
“I couldn’t sleep” she answered.  
“So you decided that moving that useless leg around was a great idea”.  
Elsie sat down close to Levi with a loud sigh. She looked like she wanted to say something but didn’t know how. They just remained there in silence for a while, under the light of the crescent moon.

When Elsie decided to speak, it was with a trembling voice. “I’m certain I have a fever. I hoped to be wrong earlier, but it’s getting worse. The wound got infected.”  
They both knew what she meant was I’ll die.  
She stayed silent for a few moments, and then said: “Thank you for everything”.  
Please, no. Say anything else but that, Levi thought.  
“You saved me”.  
No. That was too much. “The fever’s making you delirious” Levi told her.  
She smiled. “Saving someone is not just about their survival. There are things other than death to be saved from, worse things. Slavery. Emptiness. You can save people from imprisonment by giving them freedom. You can save people from a meaningless life by giving them a purpose. That’s the meaning of save”.  
She paused to catch her breath. “Mankind is living in a cage. The Survey corps fight to give them back their freedom, the world that was taken away from them. By doing this, we Scouts also save ourselves from living an empty life without a goal worth living and dying for. You’re our best soldier, the greatest hope for humanity. You and your team. By protecting you, I’m protecting all humanity. By saving you, I’ve accomplished something greater than myself. By giving me this chance, you made my life worth living. And that’s how you saved me.”  
Levi shook his head, but he felt the need to say something kind for once. “We should be the ones thanking you. You made some stupid ass decisions, but Eld and Oluo were very likely to die on the journey back without gas, and Petra would have died in a titan’s mouth today. You’re the one who saved them”.  
“And you. You’re out of gas too, are you? We all know how much you use when you fight. You’ll take my own gas tanks. I’ve barely used them, they’re almost full”.  
“Don’t talk shit. You already have a useless leg. If I take your tanks too, you might as well write titan food on your forehead”.  
“I would only slow you down since you’d have to carry me, and you can’t afford that. I’ll stay here and I’ll give you my tanks. I knew the risks, and I chose my path. This is my choice, and it comes with no regret”.  
Words followed by a long silence. Levi didn’t want to admit her solution was the only one.

The silence didn’t feel awkward or empty. It could have easily lasted longer, but Elsie smiled and said: “So… They are your Special Operations Squad, right? I heard voices about Commander Erwin’s plans to create one. Excellent choice”.  
“There’s no Special Operations Squad. It’s just a small temporary team I gathered under the Commander’s orders to handle the emergency”.  
Elsie pondered the matter. “You don’t want to create a permanent team because you don’t want them to get too close to you, and then betray their trust by getting them killed”.  
How the fuck does she know that, he thought. But what he said was: “What the fuck do you think you know about it?”  
“I understand people well. I guess I’m too empathetic for my own good”. She paused. “Also, I might have read the reports on the circumstances of your enlistment and the events of your first expedition, and drawn a conclusion”.  
“You’re saying you’ve been prying into my military carreer”.  
Elsie looked embarrassed, but she was too pale to blush. “The point is, I stand by what I said. You can do more for them then just letting them survive. You can give them a purpose. They trust you to protect their life, yet they know they might die anyway. But they also trust you to make it meaningful, and you will. Whether they die crushed by a titan in some forest or in their bed at the age of 80, they’ll know you saved them”.  
Now she was talking like Erwin. But Isabel and Farlan…  
They saw the sky, Erwin had said.

Silence fell again. Elsie was still trembling. It was a very warm late spring night, and the temperature out there wasn’t lower than inside, but that’s what you get when fever kicks in.  
“You should sleep” Levi told her.  
Elsie rested her weight on her left leg and made a miserable attempt to stand up.  
“Don’t fucking move. I’ll carry you down”. With a broken leg, it was too long a journey from the floor where the team was sleeping up to the roof. How the hell did she manage that?  
“You’re on guard shift, sir” she said.  
“Then sleep here for all I care. A stone floor is a stone floor. If you try to stand up again, I’ll throw you down this tower”.  
Elsie wondered if he really wanted her to stay and sleep there. But when he said nothing more, like the conversation was over, she laid on her back and tried to make herself comfortable. But she was trembling too hard to feel comfortable, and she had left her cape downstairs.  
Levi noticed and threw her his own. “Before you start shaking too hard and make this building crumble down”.  
Did she finally blush once again?  
“Thank you, sir”.  
And they stayed there, Elsie finally finding some peaceful sleep, Levi watching over the territory and over her.


	4. Special Operations Squad

When Elsie woke up, she realized she had been carried downstairs. She also realized she was burning. She felt unbelievably dizzy when she lifted up on her elbows. Her head hurt like someone hit it multiple times with a rock. The sun was just starting to rise, just a weak glimmer of light in an otherwise dark sky. My last sunrise, she thought.

The team members were already equipping themselves. Gunther was the first to notice Elsie woke up. “Hey, she’s up” he told the others.  
“How is it going?” Petra asked, ever so thoughtful.  
Elsie’s throat felt sore when she spoke. “Horrible”.  
Levi had already informed the others of the girl’s conditions, and all their hearts felt heavy at the thought of having to leave her behind.  
“Alright, briefing” Levi said. They all regrouped and waited for him to give them instructions.  
“First of all, a formal reorganization. Soldiers Eld Gin, Gunther Schultz, Oluo Bozad, Petra Ral and Elsie Lowe, you are now part of the Survey Corps’ Special Operations Squad, with me serving as Squad Captain”.

The entire group looked at him with wide eyes for a moment, then they bursted in cheer.  
“I knew that!” Oluo said. “And if it wasn’t clear before, after what we did yesterday in the forest it had to be”.  
“I thought you didn’t want to form that squad, Captain! That’s great!” Petra cheered.  
“We’re Special Operations Squad. We have to make it back” Gunther said, as if it really made a difference.  
“It’s an honor, Captain” Eld said, trying to look formal, but still with a wide smile.  
“If we must be a team, then we’ll just use first names, and that includes me too” Levi told them.  
Elsie was still feeling shocked. “Did you just include me in the group, Captain?”  
“What did I just say about first names?”  
“I’m sorry. I just… I’m a half-dead recruit on her first expedition. It’s something… unorthodox to do”.  
“Are you going to question my judgement as your first act in the Special Operations Squad?”  
“No, I just… It’s an honor”. Her eyes filled with tears. Of course they did.  
“Now, everyone listen. I’ve made a plan to return to the walls. The team will split in two. Elsie will hold on to this position until the arrival of a rescue party.” They all knew, Elsie included, that there would be no rescue party. The team had to make it back alive to the walls first, and night would have probably fallen by that time. Even the day after, it was very unlikely that a rescue party would be authorized, taking such a risk after the losses of the last expedition just to look for a soldier that was probably already dead was not worth it.  
“The rest of the Squad will march to Wall Maria following this trail”. He took out a map in which he had drawn a trail the previous evening. “I’ve tried to balance the need of covering the distance in the shortest time possible and the need of staying close to areas with reliable surfaces to use 3D Maneuver Gear in case of a titan attack. If everything goes according to plan, we should make it by nightfall. We leave immediately”.

They all gave Elsie a sorrowful look before leaving  
“We’re all grateful. We couldn’t make it back safely without the gas you brought” Oluo said.  
“I’ll remember what you did to that titan” Petra said.  
“You’ve been brave” Gunther praised her.  
“You served well” Eld added.  
“Thank you all, guys. It’s been an honor”.  
Levi kneeled by her side and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Thank you, Elsie”.  
She looked at him with a bright light in her eyes. “Thank you… Levi”.  
She brought a trembling fist to her heart. Levi saluted her back.  
Then he left, equipped with Elsie’s gas tanks, together with the others.  
Elsie was alone to fight against death, a battle she was doomed to lose.

-

They were marching fast and silently. They found a water source less than an hour after leaving Ebony Tower and they refilled their provisions quicker than anyone had ever done in history. The team that was so efficient in combat was just as reliable in march. Time passed slowly as they tried to balance speed and energy saving. They had to go through open spaces, of course. They accelerated in those areas, while slightly slowing down and saving energy when they reached a more sheltered zone.  
Still, they couldn’t hope to avoid titans for an entire day. The first ones they encountered were a group of three during an open-space march.  
“Two 3 meters class and a 7 meters class from north-west” Oluo notified.  
“We’ll prioritize the engagement of those with full gas tanks. I’ll go for the 7 meters, Eld and Oluo will take the others. Petra and Gunther, you only engage if anyone gets gripped”.  
They followed his orders. Levi tried to be more careful with his gas, avoiding as much as possible to spin around, prioritizing straight trajectories and avoiding to get caught by cutting rather than changing direction at the last moment. It took him longer than usual. Eld and Oluo were adopting the same strategy, and they were still fighting when Levi took his titan down. However, they manage to kill their targets without additional help.  
The march to safety continued.

-

When Elsie heard a wild scream, she thought it was just one of her delirious dreams.  
She had fallen asleep again and had a terrifying dream of titans killing his comrades, as one of those beasts held her in its grip, but didn’t try to kill her, it just hold her still forcing her to watch as they died. In another dream, she saw the group of titans that attacked Levi’s team the previous day, but Levi and the others suddenly disappeared. She was left alone with the titans, paralyzed by terror as they grabbed her and tore her apart limb by limb. One of the titans sank its teeth in her right leg, twisting it. When she woke up screaming, her leg seemed to hurt even more.   
How the hell did she sleep so well the last night? The fever still hadn’t got so worse, sure, but she also believed it had something to do with Levi by his side.  
That scream felt real, though. When she heard it again, she realized it came from out of the tower, several meters below.  
She took her crutches and tried to pull herself up on her feet. She didn’t have anything to lose if the leg got worse, anyway. She slowly and painfully moved toward the window and looked down to see a titan.  
Weirdly enough, now that she was seeing a real titan and not one of her dreams she didn’t feel scared. It was only a 3 meters class, anyway, it couldn’t hurt her from where she was.  
“Kill me if you can, monster!” she yelled, hurting her sore throat. “I’m Special Operations Squad Soldier Elsie Lowe! You can’t kill me!”  
She laughed hysterically. Fuck, her head felt about to melt.

-

The next time they sighted a titan group, they were about to leave a forest area.  
“Hold on here until we see which direction they go. If they head towards us, we’re gonna need the trees” Levi ordered.  
“It’s five of them. Why are we encountering so many during this mission?” Gunther said.  
“It almost looks like some vengeful god has thrown a new flock of titans upon this land” Oluo said.  
“Wherever titans come from, it’s not a god” Levi said.  
Of course they headed towards them. The Squad prepared for combat among the forest’s high trees.  
But they had been running and marching for hours, and that one was a tough group of titans. Petra and Gunther also had to engage, and by the end of the fight they had run entirely out of gas. Oluo was slammed against a tree and injured his left arm. Levi quickly abandoned his original plan of sparing gas when he saw his comrades in danger.  
Two soldiers without gas, one wounded, reduced rations, drained physical energy, and many more miles to Wall Maria.

-

As the hours passed, Elsie heard those screams again. It sounded like more titans had gathered. However, she did not stand up again to look at them. She laid on the floor as the fever was killing her.  
Glimpses of her past kept flashing in her mind in a blurry continuum.  
Her mother’s lullaby.  
The smell of pie in her childhood home.  
The first time she used a 3d Maneuver Gear, and all she could think of was I’m flying, I’m flying.  
She and Tania complaining that whoever decided the uniform’s pants should be white had clearly never had a period, the other girls applauding them because finally someone said it out loud.  
She and Damien joking about their impossible crushes – though she thought his crush for Hanji wasn’t remotely as impossible as hers for Levi.  
She and her Cadet corp comrades getting drunk after their graduation, Instructor Keith pretending to not have noticed the alcohol missing from the pantries, which was probably his first display of empathy ever.  
Elsie Lowe, is it? Levi knew her name, as if she was important.  
Petra’s smile as she thanked her for saving her life.  
Levi’s hand on his shoulder. Thank you, Elsie.  
What a life I’ve lived, she thought. 

The screams grew louder as the hours passed. She decided to go check on the window just to have something to do. Her dizziness and leg pain immediately alerted her that it was a terrible idea, but she still walked all the way to the window and looked down.  
From where she stood, she could see six titans. There might have been more around the tower, not visible from there.  
Something clicked insider her. Soldier instinct, maybe.  
Fight.  
She remembered something Eld said when reporting on their tower survey. There were no supplies they could carry, but they found a storage room full of explosives.  
She would blow up that tower. Hopefully the explosion and the crumbling building would kill at least some of those titans. She would die in the explosion as well, but she knew she wouldn’t survive the next night anyway. And if she did that, she would save her comrades from titans that might kill them on their next expedition.  
A death that saved lives.

-

The sun was going down fast. They kept running. They were in open space again. Oluo’s arm hurt, but he didn’t complain. Their water supplies were almost over.  
Levi shoot a signaling flare. At this distance, there was a faint hope that someone could see it from Wall Maria.  
Come on, Garrison Corp, do your job for once. Soldiers went missing, you must be looking out for signals.  
“Titan… North-west…” Eld signaled.  
At least it was only one this time.  
“15 meters class”.  
Shit. They were in this situation because Levi made all the decisions. His teammates were exhausted, some hurt, some out of gas. Levi himself, despite his incredible strength, felt way too weak.  
Something clicked inside him. Soldier instinct, maybe.  
Fight.  
“I’ll take him alone” he said.  
He didn’t give the others the time to reply. He started running towards the titan’s direction. He hooked his gear on the creature’s chest, reeling himself up quickly. He was moving so fast he almost couldn’t see the titan’s arms as he was twirling around, slicing both of them.  
The titan’s scream was wild and full of pain. Levi’s scream was wild and full of anger.  
He sliced the titan’s nape.   
They were all still alive.

-

Elsie had no idea how long it took her to place all the explosives. She hoped she did everything right. They didn’t receive an extensive training about explosives, but they still had to learn how to use all the weapons known to mankind.  
She could only see seven titans, but she heard screams from other sides of the tower as well. She didn’t have the energy to go and check in the other directions. She gave all she had to this final task. Her head felt almost as bad as her leg, and thrice the weight of a normal head. She was bathed in her own sweat, throat deathly sore, her water supplies finished a long time ago. The only word she had to describe her leg was hell.  
But there was only one thing left to do.  
She spent some final moments talking to herself.  
“You saved the whole expedition when you warned them to turn back before running out of supplies. You saved Petra from the titan. You saved Levi and his team by bringing them the gas. You’ve contributed to the Survey Corps’ mission to save the future of humanity from life in a cage. You’re going save more lives by blowing this building up and killing those titans now.  
Smile to your death, Special Operations Squad Soldier Elsie Lowe”.  
An explosion lighted up the twilight.

-

They kept shooting flares as they moved closer to Wall Maria. They almost got there. Battered, bloodied, drained.   
Alive.  
But if they sighted more titans now, there was an extremely high chance that at least one of their group would…  
Sound of galloping horses.  
Levi looked east. A Scout formation was approaching. It was twilight, the visibility was reducing fast, but Levi couldn’t be mistaken about who he saw at the head of the group. His team was still out in the world, vulnerable and far from safety, but he immediately felt home.   
Erwin.

-

As they predicted, there was no rescue party for Elsie.   
Levi was sitting in Erwin’s office the day after their miraculous return. The events that followed their separation from the Regiment were reported, the team had been taken care of, though most of them only needed a long day of rest. Oluo’s arm would heal perfectly with time.  
“Why did you assign Elsie to the Carts guard in the first place?” Levi asked.  
“I made a gamble”.  
Levi raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t even know her. What was there to gamble with?”  
“You brought her request up to me. I knew you must had seen something in her. Sometimes we have to make choices that are based on trust rather than logic alone. If you only rely on logic and never on intuition, you’ll keep repeating the same old tested paths, and progress will be impossible”.  
Levi seemed lost in his thoughts. As always, Erwin knew exactly what he was thinking.  
“She made her own choice, Levi. If you shouldn’t regret your own choices, you definitely shouldn’t blame yourself for others’. The freedom to choose our own path is all we have. If you carry the weight of other people’s decisions on your shoulders, you will be crushed and your own freedom to make decision will be gone. Make your choices, let other people make theirs, and you won’t be living in chains”.  
A long, meaningful silence followed.  
The Levi said: “I was glad to see you again”.  
Erwin smiled. “Me too, Special Operations Squad Captain Levi”.


	5. Epilogue

They waited some time after the commemoration of the fallen Scouts to officially announce the creation of Special Operations Squad. The event was celebrated with an enthusiasm that surprised Levi. People seemed to think that his elite squad was the hope of humanity or something like that. Someone would have said that they saved people from hopelessness.

Several weeks later, a Survey Corps expedition featured the forest around Ebony Tower as a stop point, and they found the building’s ruins. Titan corpses decomposed very quickly, but the inspection of the skeleton remainders suggested that at least six titans had died there.  
They therefore established that Elsie Lowe’s titan kill count amounted to at least seven, none of them accomplished in cooperation with other soldiers, all solo kills. No other recruit before or after her ever accomplished that much on their first expedition.   
Standing in front of the ruins, Oluo, Eld, Gunther, Petra and Levi raised a first to their hearts saluting their fallen Special Operations Squad fellow.

The elite team grew closer and closer. On mission, they were one mind in five bodies, working together with unprecedented coordination and lethality. Within the walls, they became a family. Levi still feared that one day he might lose them, but he made a choice and he wouldn’t regret it. His teammates also made their choice, and Levi wouldn’t regret letting them free to do so.

Several months after Special Operations Squad was formed, Levi had another dream of Farlan and Isabel. The three of them were riding together in the outside world, talking about how beautiful the sky was, how it was all worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked this story as much as I've loved writing it!  
> Please, feel free to leave a feedback, it would mean a lot to me!


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